To be honest, I haven’t read anything Hemingway

[la_rainette]

To be honest, I haven’t read anything Hemingway wrote. I am not exactly visiting his house because I want to know where he lived. I am only here for the cats. :D

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Comments

[tealin]

Having had to read some of the things Hemingway wrote, I'd say you're on the right track.

[la_rainette]

LOL - I sort of figured. We have our own authors-we-dread-to-read in high school, mind, so I know the feeling. (And really - I was so busy pettings little heads and scratching little ears that another tourist mistook me for an employee, just looking at me fawning over the cats...)

[tealin]

He manages to make the Spanish Civil War ...

The Spanish Civil War –

BORING.

I mean, on one level that is some amazing skill, but on the other ... ?!?!?!!??

Cats are definitely better.

(It would be one thing if everyone rolled their eyes at him, but there are people who positively worship Hemingway, who threaten to defriend people who don't like Hemingway, and I just can't figure it out. Understatement is great, but there's understatement and then there's sucking all life and colour out of your prose, and ... I'd better stop there before I go on all night.)

[la_rainette]

... OK, making the Spanish Civil War boring shows the kind of amazing skill people would probably rather NOT be blessed with? :D

Yeah, I am not surprised to hear that some people worship him - my first half hour on Key West had me wondering why so many men seemed to do their best to look like Henry Jones Sr (as played by Sean Connery) minus the glasses, until we went to Sloppy Joe's and I realized that they were all doing their best to look like HEMINGWAY. :D

Apparently there is a Hemingway look-alike contest in Key West every year. I dunno, I really like Victor Hugo even though my high school teachers did their best to make him unpalatable to everyone (it took me decades to realize he was a truly gorgeous writer with a great sense of humor and an uncanny ability to write amazing gothic scenes)... and yet I have never seen anyone try to LOOK LIKE Victor Hugo. Write like him, sure. Look like him... nope.

[tealin]

Well, and THIS gets me onto one of my favourite subjects, the deindividuation/overidentifications with groups/lack of boundaries in American culture – but I'm not allowed to talk about it more until I find that article that lays it out so much better than I can!

Despite my teacher's best efforts, I actually liked Steinbeck, a bit, so I can identify. I'd love to be able to read Hugo in French someday but making slow progress there, alas...

The only thing that has ever saved Hemingway for me (something I never thought possible) was Midnight in Paris. Apparently Woody Allen told Tom Hardy, who played Hemingway, not to look up any biographical detail about him, just create a performance based on the impression he got of the man through his work ... and it's amazing. I still don't think I could get through a whole book of his, but I find him much less unpalatable when I can imagine his writing being read as Hardy-Hemingway.